The truth, in the eyes of economists worldwide, is that of an incremental advantage: a signal
relative to a noise. Deng Xiaoping’s famous:
让一部分人先富起来 “let a few be rich first”
marks the
end of an absolute truth based on ideology for China, and ultimately, the global hegemony of the
concept of the sufficient truth of statistics, the relevant signal: The culture of advantage.

This relative truth only exists against a backdrop of noise; but can noise itself be displayed?
Noise, it seems, is only exhibited within an environment subject to a strict hygiene regime, a space
cleaned to the utmost. However, noise is no longer presented; only the frame, the white wall
remains. The noise has been domesticated. It has become a defined signal. Similarly, nobody has ever
heard the silence of John Cage’s 4:33. It is a situation where an interpreter merely executes a
composer’s algorithm/composition in a concert hall with an audience strictly seated, not daring to
move, cough or speak. With two nights of concerts, the Shanghai Biennale extends the thematic
exhibition “Social Factory” to reflect on noise as a continuous process, an uncatchable, slippery,
undefined in-between - the uncertain potential of society.